Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions / still dfsg free?
Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org> wrote:
> MJ Ray wrote:
> > I can understand why I can't call it mozilla, because that's their name.
> > They are not called firefox though. They make a thing called "Mozilla
> > Firefox" and are claiming "Firefox" as an extra name.
> Er, that's what a trademark is :-) Nabisco isn't called Oreo, but Oreo
> is still their trademark.
As you have just shown above, you are able to use Oreo without an
agreement with them. I suspect we are able to use Firefox without your
agreement, as long as use is honest like proper use of a name. MF may
be seeking to establish an over-strict hold over their trademark by
convincing Debian to make an unnecessary agreement.
> > On a purely pragmatic note, if it's fine to require the name is changed
> > for modified versions (like Debian's can be), it's not clear how to
> > do that at present - do we know if it is even possible?
> Read back in the various threads on this topic - I've been explaining
> how it's done.
Sorry, I thought you had only described how to make a build avoiding
use of the trademarked logos, but there are some places where the
name is hardwired? The trademarked name also appears in the supposedly
"non-trademark" logo graphics, it seems.
> > It feels like
> > Mozilla may be free but vexatious. Unsurprisingly, I'm a little grumpy at
> > them claiming they are behaving well while making more work for us.
> I apologise that our trademark policy makes more work for you, but I do
> think we are behaving well in that all of our software is still Free.
I am not convinced that it's free if your trademark is used. Fortunately,
the name is an avoidable problem. It's just a lot of work, so the
wondering is necessary.
> > Then
> > there are the claims that X or Y from MF will discuss it, even though
> > past attempts failed and it seems nothing has changed on MF's side.
> I'm here and I'm not going away.
Will you keep tracking discussions even if others from MF are involved?
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